


A Fate Unknown

by bluflamingo



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 19:54:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Waiting to hear of his fate after the death of Nelson, Laurence receives an unexpected visitor (post-Victory of Eagles)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fate Unknown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Desdemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desdemon/gifts).



Perhaps the very last person Laurence expects to see, only a week from the victory, and the death of Nelson, is Tharkay, standing by Temeraire's head, a book in his hands. 

"See, Laurence," Temeraire calls as Laurence winds his way cautiously closer. He and Tharkay have not seen each other since the battle, and their last meeting before that was not well done - by Laurence, at least. 

And yet, Tharkay seems to have sought him out, so perhaps things are not so bad. Many things are unclear to Laurence at this moment.

"Mr. Tharkay has brought me a gift."

"I see," Laurence agrees. "Our thanks, Mr. Tharkay."

Tharkay inclines his head just a fraction, a smile touching his lips. "You are both most welcome. Temeraire has been telling me off his building works."

Laurence offers his own smile, turned away from his fears for the future, if only for a moment. "You came to see Temeraire?"

"I came to see you. Perhaps we could take a walk?"

Laurence had thought, making his way back to Temeraire, of only sleeping, despite the early hour. He cannot help but think this may be his last chance to see Tharkay; he would not have them part so unsettled.

"Yes," Temeraire says, a little more enthusiastic than Laurence would prefer. "You should go with him, Laurence."

Tharkay glances to Temeraire, who does a credible impression of being quite innocent of any suggestion, though Laurence barely dares meet either's gaze. "It would be my pleasure," he says, quite without thought, and has to duck away to avoid anyone seeing how he surely blushes.

*

"I have a room here," Tharkay says as they walk by a small inn, not so far from where the dragons are building. "Perhaps you'd care to step inside?"

They've talked of nothing of consequence during their short walk – the weather, the book Tharkay gifted to Temeraire. They have not spoken of their last conversation, or what might yet follow this one; Laurence is no longer so certain that they will, or that it was ever Tharkay's intention that they should.

Regardless, he is not yet ready to say goodbye. "I would."

Tharkay's room is small, barely enough for a bed and a wash-stand, with a single window looking down into the yard. Still, the covers are neat and straight, and Laurence imagines Tharkay's few possessions are packed similarly neatly into the trunk at the foot of the bed. 

He paces to the window, and finds himself frozen there, unable to look back at Tharkay, the room grown too small.

"There has been no word yet of your fate?" Tharkay's voice comes from too close to Laurence, who turns his head a little to find Tharkay stood at the head of the bed, watching Laurence. 

"No. Though it seems perhaps I am not to be executed after all." Laurence recalls, briefly, his short conversation with Jane. "Or at the very least, not within the next few days."

Tharkay smiles, a bare lifting of the corners of his mouth, and Laurence hopes, most dearly, that he has not mistaken what he now perceives to be Tharkay's intent in bringing him here. "You and Temeraire," Tharkay says, "You have done well. Whatever your fate is to be, it is not deserved."

Those few words should not mean so much to Laurence, he knows it. It is only that they have been, he and Temeraire, under threat of being parted, of their own deaths, or those of their friends, for so very long; that is all that makes Laurence shake at a few words of kindness from the same man who forced him to admit to his own poor choices and worse behaviour. "I should not have come," he says, and is unsurprised, but still mortified, to hear that his voice too shakes. 

"You should stay," Tharkay says, and his hand is gentle and warm around Laurence's, and Laurence finds that, though he could push Tharkay aside easily enough, he does not want to do so.

*

The bed is too small, almost, for two grown men, but Laurence is used to ship berths, the rocking of the waves and the close sound of people passing by, so it is not hard to recall old tricks to avoid falling. They have little of use with them, just mouths and hands, curled top to toe and clinging to each other so as not to fall – so as not to shake with emotion better let out in this way than any other. Laurence hardly remembers the last time he had this, though it barely matters, and then the trying is over anyway, lost in the feel of Tharkay's mouth closing over his erection, and the warm weight of Tharkay's own in Laurence's mouth. 

He is sure that, much later, he will be ashamed of himself, for the way he clutches at Tharkay's hips hard enough to leave bruises, for how he presses his face to Tharkay's groin and how he moans with the feel of their two bodies together. 

Tharkay takes what seems to be very little time before he spends himself in Laurence's mouth, sighing with the pleasure of it. He slides slowly from Laurence's mouth, his own still moving, taking Laurence into his throat. It feels wonderful, sensation that Laurence wishes he could lose himself in, his eyes pressed closed to block out the late afternoon light and the world he is soon to return to, and yet –

"Let me," Tharkay says, drawing back and sitting up. He is still wearing his shirt, unbuttoned to show the lean muscles of his torso and frame his now softened member. He moves until they are face to face, and when he lies down again, he draws Laurence in close enough to share one kiss, a second, then more, Tharkay's hand warm on Laurence's cock, working him slow and easy, slick with spit and the way Laurence is leaking.

"There," Tharkay says, between kisses. "There, now, feel how good that is. Yes? There is no-one – Will, there is no-one here but me, you must, now, Will, Will..."

So few call him by his given name, and none in bed before or since Jane. Perhaps that is, in the end, what finishes Laurence off, his body jerking awkwardly as he spills over Tharkay's hand.

*

"You know my name," Laurence says, much later, as they lie, utterly spent, naked and close between sheets that are hardly now fit for that name. "And yet I find I do not recall ever knowing your own."

Tharkay moves the scant distance necessary to press his lips to Laurence's. "Likely because you never have known it."

Laurence rests his head on Tharkay's shoulder and wonders at what Temeraire will be thinking of the two of them right now; what he will say when Laurence eventually returns. "Though you know mine."

"I do." Tharkay curves one arm tighter around Laurence. "There is still time," he says, soft into Laurence's ear. "I am certain that, one day, you will learn it."

His own fate, and Temeraire's too, still hold so uncertain, with far more chances for a poor end than any other, and yet, in that one moment, Laurence allows himself, silently, to believe that it will all, somehow, become right in the end.


End file.
